Johann Quisumbing

A Fictional Series by J Quisumbing

Chapter 10 continued

Jer Roque settled back into the pilot’s seat. He took the drone out of auto pilot and by the look on the center screen, it was still orbitting Ito’s boat.

“Pegasus, Pegasus… this is Neptune.” It was the admiral’s voice. “Hey, Jer… it sure took you a long time to be in the head? Did ya have a hard time?” He said humorously.

“At least, the one that I used here was a lot more comfy than Ito’s bucket in a cubbyhole,” Jer laughed.

The admiral could be heard chortling in the speakers. “Yeah, Ms. Buenaventura’s still complaining about it,” he said in a low whispered voice.

“I heard that, admiral!” Alicia Buenaventura’s voice sounded in the background.

There was another bout of laughter.

Twenty minutes later, Jer saw that the boats reached the head of the flotsam.

“Alright, Neptune… you’re there. It’s scooping time.”

Jer banked to the port to watch Neptune unwind their main catch net which was about 600 feet in length and 30 feet in height. Just like every commercial fishing nets, this one had a string of floaters on top and weights on the bottom. Unlike other nets though, this net was fabricated in Oceanus, a lot more lightweight and it can stretch to twice its size, but had the tensile strenght of steel. Jer’s always amazed over the stuff that’s produced here.

The Neptune pulled away from the net. The other two boats headed for the two ends of the net. As both boats attached the net to their stern, Jer picked up the intercomm phone and punched-in 4 numbers.

“Hey Robby, they’re about to start scooping up the patch. It should take them 2… 3 hours top. I think we can send the Belinda out there now. Okay, thanks. See ya.”

He hunged up.

“Neptune, Neptune… Belinda will be there… ETA… about 1 hour.”

“Copy that, Pegasus,” said the admiral. “Hey Jer, are you going to hang around for awhile?”

“Sure, admiral. I’ll watch the show for a while. Besides, I still have my coffee to finish.” He slurped loudly, then said,”Mmmm… I really love the coffee blend from your stack.” He laughed out loud.

“You are cruel, Jer,” the admiral’s voice came in jovially. “No Christmas gift for you this year.” More laughter.

Jer watched the two small boats in full sails maneuver the net into the colored stain. The boats maintained an equi-distance of about 300 feet from each other. One hour into the operation, he could not tell how much debris was collected so far. But by the look of it, the net was visibly stretched far back like a bloated stomach. This caused both boats to angle their bows outward to maintain their equi-distance. The Neptune was about 2 miles behind and it had its own scoop net out. It was cone shaped and was 40 feet long. It was designed to collect tiny plastic particles. They’re collecting samples for the research group.

After about an hour, Jer called in the other pilot to take over. As he was exiting the control room, he bumped into Laura Kostas.

“Laura? What are you doing up here?” he asked surprisingly, not ever seeing her up here before.

“Oh, I’m exploring and… well, I’m also hoping to catch a glimpse of the drones when they come back from their mission. I’m sort of a RC nut.”

“I’m sorry, Laura, but the control rooms are off limits. However, one of the drones is coming back in about 20 minutes. You can watch the drone be snagged right out of the air at the flight decks above. Just tell the deck boss that I gave the okay.”

“Thank you, Major,” she said smiling then turned to walk toward the stair well.

Jer shrugged his shoulders then proceeded down below to meet up with the pretty NCIS agent.

To be continued…

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Note from the author:
Oceanus Adventure is a fun effort on my part to enter the wonderful world of creative writing. It’s a story of a group of people who launched themselves into the Pacific Ocean on an artificial island to solve the Great Pacific garbage patch. My hopes is that this will end up into a TV series.

Comments and idea suggestions will be most welcomed. I hope you enjoy.